Counties default on electricity bills worth Ksh4 billion

County governments have defaulted on paying electricity bills worth Ksh4.04 billion to Kenya Power.

This has left the company with a major headache of going after the 47 counties in efforts to recover the arrears.

According to Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu, counties have also failed to pay Ksh74.4 million to Kenya Power for street lights maintenance in the devolved units.

These works were done way back in 2016 and 2017.

The receivables balance includes Ksh4,040,767,301 in respect of unpaid electricity bills from the 47 county governments which continue to accumulate

Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu

The Auditor-General added that efforts by the Kenya Power management to recover the arrears are not yielding any fruits.

Counties are notorious for defaulting not only on power bills but also other arrears owed to suppliers of various goods and services.

This is more so when new governors are elected into office who then refuse to settle debts accumulated by their predecessors.

In the year to June 2024, Kenya Power’s current trade and other receivables totaled Ksh58.53 billion.

These include outstanding unpaid bills from customers and dues from the government on whose behalf it is undertaking a number of electrification programmes.

Unpaid bills have been a menace for Kenya Power for decades, with the company forced to write off some of these debts after losing hope of recovering them.  

Kenya Power usually charges a deposit of a minimum of Sh2,500 to be connected to the grid which partially covers defaults.

Despite this, payment of power bills is increasingly becoming a headache especially for large electricity consumers such as manufacturers amid the prices increase.

Some of the main defaulters include county governments and government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) whose unpaid power bills have been outstanding for years.

The utility says it tries as much as possible to recover the electricity debts unless it confirms that there is no prospect of recovery or the costs of chasing after the defaulters will exceed the benefits to be derived.

Amounts written off are determined after taking into account the value of the security held

kenya power

Kenya Power said it is employing a number of strategies that have proved largely successful in recovering debt from non-paying customers.

It said this includes disconnections, increased internal debt management capacity, use of third-party debt collectors, focus on early identification and requirement for higher security deposits for defaulting customers.

Besides disconnections, Kenya Power has also been racing to install prepaid and automatic meters to reduce defaults.

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